


upend your whole world

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Chaptered, F/M, Kinda, Meet-Cute, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, as far as we know anyway idk, meet ugly, or - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-03-30 02:46:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19033177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: “Thanks, dude,” Shitty says to Emma. She flips them both a peace sign and leaves, downing the rest of her drink. He looks at Larissa now in a way that looks apologetic. “Sorry, thank you, I just really needed to give you this.”Bemused, Larissa takes one of the flyers. It says: INTERESTED IN HELPING A RAGTAG GROUP OF DREAMERS EARN THEIR FIRST FROZEN FOUR TITLE? APPLY FOR THE MANAGER POSITION WITH THE SAMWELL MEN’S HOCKEY TEAM! There are a bunch of smiley faces bordering the page. She blinks.“Exactly what about me shouts ‘I wanna manage a men’s hockey team,’” she says._________________Inspired bythis shitty-check-please-aus post: "coffeeshop au where Lardo is a barista and Shitty is the very high man who asks if he can leave his laundry behind the counter while he goes to get something."Gonna go through Lardo's frog year from her POV :)





	1. Chapter 1

________________________

 

“Hey brah, is it chill if I uh. Leave this here?”

Larissa blinks. “Excuse me?”

The guy gestures vaguely to a large hamper of unfolded laundry that has absolutely no business being in her dorm’s student-run coffee shop, even if it isn’t very busy at the moment. All of the clothes looks clean — as far as she can tell anyway — but like. There’s a very prevalent weed smell hanging off the guy’s mustache, RBG tank top, and plaid booty shorts. So.  _ No? _

“You can’t leave your laundry here,” she says, trying for an air of authority like she doesn’t have an entire shift’s work of coffee and sprinkles in her hair and apron. Like it isn’t already 10:30 PM and she isn’t dead on her feet. “I can’t watch that for you.”

“I’ll pay you,” the guy says. “I just like. Look. I need to go get something and then I’ll be right back.”

Larissa straightens, crossing her arms. “Get what, exactly.”

The guy fidgets. “I can't tell you,” he says earnestly. “It’s against the bylaws.”

“Sorry, what?” A girl from her floor queues up behind the guy and she impatiently waves her forward, holding up a hand to stop the guy from interrupting. “Hey, Emma.”

“Lars,” Emma says, amused. She nods at the guy, and he skips to the side. “Can I get a hot chocolate?”

Larissa nods, rings her up, and twirls around her tiny space as she works on the drink. As she does, she listens in on Emma and the guy talking about — hockey playoffs, and it clicks. The fucking hockey team. It’s  _ always  _ something with the hockey team, her art friends have stories of interrupted exhibits and paintings ruined because some hockey jock was playing chicken on Lake Quad and ran into them.

She slides the drink to Emma, saying, “Here ya go,” and the guy looks newly hopeful. She shakes her head before he opens his mouth. “Sorry, I really can’t, I don’t know you and it’s against policy.”

“You have a specific policy against people leaving laundry here?” 

Larissa shrugs. “Probably.”

The guy frowns, looking thoughtful. At this point she’s tempted to say _sure,_ _whatever,_ if it’ll resolve this. She’s got an hour fifteen left in her shift. 

“I can watch it here,” Emma says suddenly. The guy stares at her like she just unraveled the Gordian knot. “Like. I’ll just. Chill here, if it’s really that important.”

_ “Thank  _ you,” the guy says. He gives Larissa a  _ one sec _ kind of gesture and fucking books it out of the room.

Larissa brushes her hair behind her ears and says, “Thanks.” It doesn’t solve the problem, exactly — she’d still much rather not have his laundry in the shop in the first place — but at least it’s closer to being gone. Hopefully. Assuming he doesn’t forget about it because he's so high.

“No prob,” Emma says, stretching out in one of the armchairs. “It’s just shitty.”

“Yeah, I mean. What the fuck did he expect me to do about it, that’s  _ so _ shitty to put me in that position.”

“No, I mean,” Emma says, “that’s Shitty. That guy, that’s his name. He’s like that a lot of the time, actually, but pretty harmless. He’s in my women’s study class.”

It takes her a second to process that. “His name is  _ what.” _

“Shitty.” Emma shrugs. “I dunno, man. Hockey players are weird.”

“Yeah,” Larissa says. 

They lapse into silence while they wait, Emma contentedly sipping her hot chocolate and Larissa wiping down the counter and tables for something to do with her hands. She has a bizarre urge to fold Shitty’s clothes; the hamper’s ruining the vibe of the place. Not that she likes it that much to begin with, but still.

Footsteps from the hallway, then Shitty comes barreling back into the room. He’s red like he’s been running for awhile. There are a bunch of flyers in his hand.

“Thanks, dude,” Shitty says to Emma. She flips them both a peace sign and leaves, downing the rest of her drink. He looks at Larissa now in a way that looks apologetic. “Sorry, thank you, I just really needed to give you this.”

Bemused, Larissa takes one of the flyers. It says: INTERESTED IN HELPING A RAGTAG GROUP OF DREAMERS EARN THEIR FIRST FROZEN FOUR TITLE? APPLY FOR THE MANAGER POSITION WITH THE SAMWELL MEN’S HOCKEY TEAM! There are a bunch of smiley faces bordering the page. She blinks.

“Exactly what about me shouts ‘I wanna manage a men’s hockey team,’” she says. 

Shitty leans on the counter and says, “You don’t take shit, and we need that.”

Larissa turns this over, biting her lip. It’s paid, apparently; there’s a pretty figure at the bottom that’s $4 more than what she’s getting now. Art supplies are expensive, and if she ends up getting into the Kenya study abroad program that’s another major expense, even with scholarships.

It’s tempting.

“Were you planning on giving this to me when you asked the first time,” Larissa says, because she needs to say something. This close, Shitty has really pretty eyes, and she kinda wants to paint them. “Or did you really need to grab something?”

“I wanted to see what you’d say,” Shitty says, smiling. “We don’t really have a good, uh. Way to get the word out, so. This worked with our last manager but he’s a senior now, so we gotta find a replacement.”

She just says, “Huh.” 

She scans the flyer again. Out of the corner of her eye she watches Shitty’s smile widen, and that decides it for her.

“Okay,” Larissa says, flattening the flyer down on the counter. “I’m in.” Shitty fist pumps, beaming. She holds up her hands.  _ “Only  _ on a trial basis to start, and you’re gonna help me with names because there are so fucking many of you.”

“On it,” Shitty says. He straightens and sticks his hand out. “I’m Shitty, new official Samwell Men’s Hockey liaison.”

She takes a deep breath, flexing and relaxing her hands. Her art friends are gonna be so annoyed, but fuck it.

“Larissa,” she says, and they shake on it. 

“Larissa?” Shitty says. She thinks she’s probably gonna have to watch out for this look in the future; he’s got the same kind of expression as the guys in her friends’ paintings, when they work through their hockey-related trauma in art. The one that says  _ watch out, I'm gonna upend your whole world and have a fucking ball the whole time. _ It probably shouldn’t be thrilling. It is.

He says, grinning, “Oh, man, Larissa. Just wait. I’m gonna nickname the shit out of you.”

________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been meaning to write some Shitty/Lardo for AGES so here we go :)  
> Again, this may end up being a chaptered fic; as of right now we're sorta going on whims with fanfic, so who knows! But I love them a lot and I hope y'all enjoyed this :)
> 
> EDIT: lol this may get Long
> 
> I'm on tumblr, [come say hi!](http://ivecarvedawoodenheart.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

________________________

 

Larissa doesn’t hate The Well. It feels important, somehow, standing on the steps on this dilapidated frat house, to remember her job isn’t total shit. Most of the time. If this doesn’t work out — if they make her uncomfortable — she still has a steady paycheck to fall back on. And Maria sent something in the floor group chat about a dog sitting app a few minutes ago too, so. There’s always that.

Her watch ticks. Should she knock? Text? Or — shit. They’d forgotten to exchange numbers last night. Her thumbs hover over the screen out of habit anyway.

There’s a sudden screech from inside like someone’s being murdered and that makes the decision for her. Heart pounding, she knocks once and pushes the door open.

It isn’t — it isn’t as awful as the porch implied. There’s a faint odor but she’d expected that, is familiar with athletic smell from varsity swimming the last four years. Someone must have recently sprayed Febreze. A solitary Solo cup in the corner down the hall. A few pairs of shoes at the door. Larissa unlaces her boots and, careful of any sticky spots on the floor, lines her shoes up next to the others.

“Hello?” she calls.

 _“Fuck_ me is that the pizza?” a loud male voice says from the next room.

Someone else says, “I think it’s the catalyst of everyone’s plot lines and character development.” Larissa doesn’t have time to process whatever the hell that means before someone very tall, broad, and not at all Shitty skips into the hallway.

“You aren’t pizza,” the guy says, pointing an Xbox controller at her. His teeth are very white and square.

“Ate it on the way,” Larissa says. She’s itching for her phone; they agreed on 3:45 so Shitty would have time to get back after his 3:30 class, and it’s 3:50 now. Either he died or this is all a joke. Either way she’s not emotionally prepared for it. She shifts her weight. “Is Shitty around?”

The guy considers her. He smiles unexpectedly. “You’re the manager,” he says. He points at himself with the controller. “I’m Holster.”

What the _fuck_ are these names. “Larissa.”

“Shitty’s not here yet,” he says, nodding to say he acknowledged her name. “He’s probably debating his prof on women’s rights or something, apparently there’s this one total dickhead who teaches a mandatory class, he’s been complaining all semester—”

“Semester’s been, what. Two weeks? Three?” Larissa says distractedly, pulling on the straps of her backpack; Holster’s making his way down the hallway toward a loud room, and she’s trying not to step in any spills. Just because it doesn’t look wet doesn’t mean it’s dry.

Holster shrugs. “He has a lot of feelings,” he says.

Then they’re in the room.

For a second Larissa freezes, unsure of where to look first. There’s at least ten different guys crammed onto a tiny pink couch, all of whom are gesturing wildly at the TV, most of whom have a cup of something even though it’s _3:50 in the afternoon,_ one of whom has the pinkest shorts she’s ever seen.

“Guys, this is Larissa,” Holster says loudly. Someone says something like _yo that your new wheel_ and Holster throws his controller at him.

Larissa folds her arms. “I’m the new manager,” she says icily. She raises her eyebrows, and the guy seems to wilt. “Got a problem, asshead?”

He mutters, “No,” and fidgets with his sweatshirt.

The rest of the guys look at her with varying amounts of respect. “Fucking murdered, bro,” Pink Shorts says. He salutes Larissa from across the room. “I’m Ransom.”

They go around the room listing increasingly unlikely names. The only “normal” name in the bunch is Johnson, who gives her an inscrutable look like he’s seeing her atoms. She frowns at him.

“You’re gonna have to remind me,” Larissa says, somewhat apologetic. She glances at Holster. “This isn’t even the whole team, is it.”

“Not by half.” Holster squeezes his way onto the couch and honestly, she’d bet money that that thing collapses before the end of the year. No way is it designed to hold that many hockey players.

Ransom gently slaps at the guy sitting on the arm of the couch — she thinks his name is Mercer? Mucker? — saying, “Budge over, eh,” and the guy does. Ransom waves Larissa into the room. “How’re you at Call of Duty?”

“No idea,” Larissa says. She sits down gingerly on the couch, leaning forward to pretend like she’s studying their strategy and not listening for the front door to open.

Holster holds out his controller. “Wanna find out?” he says.

This feels like a _moment_. If she had paints with her, she’d paint it something honey yellow and apprehensive. Longing. Like the way it felt when she stepped on campus for the first time.

She takes it.

Lardo says “Ten bucks says I kick all your asses” with a confidence she mostly feels and Holster, Ransom, and most of the other guys laugh. She thinks there’s some nerves behind the laughter.

“You’re so fucking on,” Ransom says, and they play.

____________

 

Shitty shows up two Solo cups of Natty Light later. She senses him leaning against the doorway, taking in the scene, and she tries to focus on the screen. Her character’s currently knee deep in a mess of grody water.

“Brahs, someone order pizza?” Shitty says after a few moments.

The room erupts in the kind of noise 20 something year old men make when there’s suddenly pizza in the room. Larissa pauses the game, unexpectedly fluttery; it’s hard to look at Shitty, somehow. She turns and smiles briefly before picking at her nails.

Shitty takes the pizza into the kitchen “so you heathens can use some fuckin’ table manners for once” and she hears him come back before she sees him. His shadow seems hesitant in the doorway. The guys file past him.

“You good?” she asks, when it’s obvious he isn’t going to speak.

He exhales in something like relief, saying, “This day’s already been so shitty,” and she finally looks at him when he drops next to her onto the couch. “Like. You would not _believe_ some of the jerks who take women’s studies classes and are still jerks.” He sighs. “Check your toxic masculinity at the door, Brandon.”

Huh. Shitty’s kind of slowly bucking ever worry she had about the hockey team. Not that she feels totally comfortable being here, in this house surrounded by all of them, but it helps that Shitty’s talking to her like they’re already friends. They’re quiet while Larissa scrolls through the extra info on the pause screen, searching for something to say in response.

“That’s the team, then?” she says finally. She has a sneaking suspicion Shitty is trying to let her take her time with everything. Like he’s trying not to be too pushy with her or something. “Thought they’d be better at Call of Duty.”

Shitty rubs his knuckles on her head. Larissa laughs in surprise, gently pushing on his stomach until he stops. She thinks he’s probably nicely muscled under her hands. She thinks his eyes linger on her face just a little bit.

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly. He reaches out like he’s about to shake her hair back into place before detouring abruptly to straighten a Solo cup on the couch cushion. “Um.”

“What did you wanna talk about?” Larissa asks, trying to cut the sudden tension. “I have questions, if that’s okay?”

He gives her an enthusiastic “Fuck yeah” while she rummages through her backpack, looking for her sketchbook. She and Emma had come up with a very tired, caffeine-influenced list of shit to ask about sometime between Painting Workshop 146 and Sketching 103 earlier. At some point she must have spilled coffee over it; there’s a brown stain splattering over items 1-6.

“Okay,” she says, settling in. “The coaches. How closely do I work with them?”

Shitty talks her through the finer points of managing a hockey team, how she’d help the coaches with scheduling and ordering gear. He goes on to go through the practice schedule (“Back the fuck up, six in the morning on Tuesdays?” “Don’t remind me.”) and the procedure for home versus away games (she’ll be primarily in charge of the former, they have a crew who’ll come in for concessions and ticket sales, she’ll have her own room on roadies).

Hearing everything laid out like this feels reassuring, more doable. She’s always liked writing things down into lists.

“Who’s the captain?” she asks, and Shitty’s expression shutters. “That’s — right? Hockey teams have captains.”

He sighs again. “We do, it’s just. Jack’s got a lot going on right now, like, with his personal shit. So. When you meet him, you gotta be cool, okay? And I’ll tell him too. He can be a bit abrasive if you don’t know him.”

“Is there something I need to know, or—”

“Probably,” Shitty says, running his hands through his hair. A clattering noise comes from the kitchen, closely followed by a loud whoop. “Are you coming to practice tomorrow?”

Larissa looks down at her hands, thinking. She has work tonight and a sketch she needs to turn in soon. Practice is afternoon tomorrow. Theoretically, she could swing it; it’s about two hours and it slots in perfectly between her math and English requirements. Getting everything figured out now will smooth the transition if she decides to take this on.

There’s more to it than that. Shitty looks like he really, really wants her to say yes.

“Yeah,” she says. It comes out sounding something closer to a question, but his face brightens. She clears her throat. “I’ll be late, I have class and I gotta grab food before my other one, but it should work out.”

He says, “Sick, brah,” and Larissa says, heart fluttering for no fucking reason, “You have nice hair.”

It’s thick and shiny and halfway to his shoulders so she’s right to have said it, but. She hadn’t expected to say it just now. She blames Holster and his Natty Lights. Her tolerance for alcohol has always been on the floor.

“Thank you,” Shitty says, sounding genuinely touched. “Been growing it out awhile.”

“You know if you—” Larissa tugs softly on his hair before she can think about it. “—if you cut it a little, trim it now and then, it’ll grow better. Some conditioner maybe. Little more healthy.”

Out in the hallway someone says, “Shits! You guys done in there yet?” There’s a _whuff_ noise like the speaker got elbowed hard in the stomach. “I mean — take your time?”

“Tourney Tues,” Shitty mumbles. He gives her an apologetic glance. “They’re gonna get more antsy if they can’t keep playing, Brensy’s defending his title.”

As if on cue, Holster pokes his head in. “I don’t wanna rush you but—”

“Brensy’s ready to kill some zombies,” Larissa says. Holster nods, grimacing. “It’s all good, I gotta get to work.”

Shitty hops up to walk her out. As they pass the kitchen, she catches a glimpse of the guys standing around the table murmuring to each other. They break off when she and Shitty pass by. Unease creeps into her stomach. She wants to know what they were saying.

“Nice to meet you,” Ransom calls out.

She waves a goodbye, stepping into her shoes. “You too.”

Holster leans against the hallway and crosses his arms and it strikes her again how fucking massive a human he is. Ransom is too, now that she thinks about it, but Holster’s a little more burly. Together they look like a brick wall.

He says, “This is weird, but. Are you in Grummle’s overview of calc? Noon to one fifteen?”

“Yeah,” she says, then pauses. “Wait. Are you — did you ask about the math in The Martian in lecture yesterday?”

Holster smiles like he’s embarrassed. “I just really wanted to know, okay. He chirped me halfway to death.”

“He was being a dick,” Larissa says, internally wondering what the hell chirping was. She’s gonna need a dictionary to keep up with them. “But yeah. I’m in that class too.”

He jerks his thumb back toward the kitchen, saying, “Rans is too, d’you wanna sit with us? It’d be nice to have someone around who doesn’t hate the hockey team.”

Larissa nods and hands her phone over for Holster to type in his number. She’s faintly aware of Shitty watching them with a strange look on his face as Holster texts himself from her phone, saving her number.

“‘Swawesome,” he says, handing her phone back. “See ya bright and early then.”

Something thrills at seeing his name in her phone. It feels like something concrete, as if saying even if this doesn’t work out she may have made a friend after all.

“Text me when you guys get there?” Larissa asks, and he shoots finger guns at her before disappearing into the living room.

She and Shitty step onto the porch. He almost has to duck to make it under the doorframe; she hadn’t realized how much talker he is than she is. _A house full of giants,_ she thinks a little wildly. And then: _I’m gonna carve out a place to put my feet here._

She holds out her hand. He raises his eyebrows. “Gimme your phone,” she says, rolling her eyes. She types in her name. “Here.”

“Duan?” he says. He shoots her a look as if double checking his pronunciation and she smiles at him, feeling bizarrely happy. He’s the first person in such a long time to sound out the syllables carefully, like he’s really trying.

She says, “Yeah,” and then her phone chimes with a text from him. She quickly saves his number.

“I’ll text you? Tomorrow?” he says, somehow turning statements into questions like he’s asking for permission. “Directions and stuff, what to do when you get in the rink, stuff like that.”

“That’d be great, Shits,” she says. His nickname tastes good on her tongue. She takes a few steps toward the sidewalk, still smiling. Her phone buzzes with another text and she turns around, pointing at him with teasing accusation.

“Or now,” he says. He’s very visibly biting down a smile. “Catch ya later, Larissa.”

“See you tomorrow,” she says back, tucking her hair behind her ear.

She’s nearly at her dorm before she checks what he wrote.

_I like your hair too._

She smiles at it.

________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so my plan right now is to write in a frenzy until thursday and get this all posted, but it may end up taking a little bit to go through this whole year. It may be a bit, but I love them a lot, and I wanna write my take on Lardo's frog year so that's what's happening now
> 
> This note doesn't really make much sense but it's midnight & honestly I dunno what else I expected from myself
> 
> Thanks for reading! Lemme know what you think so far :) I'm kinda enjoying writing them all meeting each other
> 
> Next up: getting to know Jack & her art friends


	3. Chapter 3

________________________

 

Her phone vibrates in her pocket a few steps from Grummle’s door. 

_yo Duan what’s your coffee order_

It’s from an unknown number. Larissa stares at it, frowning, until another one comes in.

_this is Ransom_

_from the hockey team_

_Shitty’s friend Ransom from the hockey team Holster gave me your number, is that okay?_

She’s unreasonably giddy at this. _Hey Shitty’s friend Ranson from the hockey team,_ she sends back. _caramel macchiato w whip?_

The response comes through before she’s even closed the screen. _we got ya save us seats?_

Ransom and Holster slide in her row a few minutes later, handing her a giant cup with steam still pouring out. “Thanks,” she says, taking a sip. It brightens her up immediately. “I never have time to grab coffee.”

Holster says, “We got your back, dude,” and she thinks about it for the entire lecture.

____________

 

“Who the hell is _Shitty,”_ Mary asks a few hours later in the dining hall. Larissa waves her away, hunching even lower over her phone. She can tell without looking that Mary’s wearing her _what the fuck also are you screwing_ face. It’s her usual go to when any of their friends meet someone new. Larissa’s seen it a lot lately, thanks to Welcome Week shenanigans.

“Guy on the hockey team,” Larissa says distractedly. Shitty’s sending her info on what doors to go in at the rink, what hallways to go down. She eats a spoonful of macaroni and ignores the fact that most of it spills back into the bowl.

“The hockey team, huh.” Mary’s tone is flatter than hell. “That’s … new.”

Text sent, Larissa looks up. “Yeah. What’s all that about, then?”

“Which part? The fact that you’re hooking up with the hockey team, or?”

“I’m not _hooking up_ with the hockey team,” Larissa says, rolling her eyes. She doesn’t say, _there’s one of them I’d like to make out with._ “I’m managing.”

“Yeah, managing to completely turn your back on your arts degree—”

“You dumbass,” she says, but it’s without too much heat. “I’m managing the team, I’m getting paid to do shit. I can be jock-adjacent and still get an arts degree.”

Mary twists her mouth, crossing her arms. “I just want you to know what you’re getting into is all.”

“And what am I getting into.”

“They’re a bunch of loud, privileged, white men who are probably sexist and racist as hell,” Mary says bluntly. She stabs her salad. “Everyone at Samwell hates the hockey team.”

“I thought that was because they’re loud,” Larissa says, but her stomach suddenly hurts too much to keep eating. She slides her bowl a few inches away. 

“I mean hey, what do I know.” Mary shrugs. “Maybe they’re better this year. Just be safe, okay? And don’t sleep with them, they only do hookups.”

“Good to know,” Larissa mumbles, feeling too warm. She stands up abruptly. “I gotta go. Thanks for food and all, I just gotta—”

“Hockey practice?” Mary twists her lips again, distinctly unimpressed. 

Larissa mutters something under her breath and all but runs out of the dining hall.

____________

 

It’s not like she hadn’t thought about it, okay. 

Yesterday at the house, she’d thought about it when Holster opened the door. And then again when she and Ransom were the only people of color in the living room, and then for a third time when they’d all assumed she and Holster were hooking up. Larissa’s never not been aware of being Vietnamese and female and not as well off, but being in the room with all of them? Everything that separates her from them just feels so much more glaring than when she’s not around them, when Mary can pull back the curtain like she’s a pathetic Wizard of Oz.

She doesn’t feel it with Shitty. She didn’t feel it earlier with Ransom and Holster in class. But she’s felt it.

And now … she pushes through the doors to Faber and it looks so grey and dim compared to what she expected. It’s the halls the players walk through, so it’s not exactly public space, and yet. She was hoping it’d have a little more _warmth_ after her talk with Mary. 

They have at least three rinks: one practice, one game, and one NHL. The practice rink rises large in front of her, practically swarming with players, and the windows behind the goalpost are cloudy.

It must be beautiful in the sunlight. Larissa holds onto that as she walks up to the bench, schooling her face into something a little more badass and a little less nervous out of her mind.

None of the names on the jerseys look familiar. There’s an Oluransi, a Fitzgerald, and a Brantly, but none of them are names she recognizes. She’d sort of assumed Ransom and Holster go by their last names but she’s seem neither of them. 

At least she doesn’t think so. From her perspective, they all look Abominable Snowmen.

“Larissa!”

She knows that voice, though. “Shitty?”

A player detaches from the huddle and skates over to where she’s standing and leans against the boards, grinning, and she doesn’t see how she didn’t recognize him before. Shitty’s hair flows beautifully out from under his helmet.

“Hey,” he says. She thinks he’s maybe searching her eyes. She doesn’t want him to see what Mary said, though, so she ducks her head enough for her hair to fall in her face. _They only do hookups._ There’s a lot hanging in that _hey._

Larissa says, “Hi,” and now another player skates up next to them.

Shitty slings his arm around the new guy’s shoulders. The new guy looks like he’s only just tolerating Shitty’s arm, but Larissa thinks it’s an act. It’s something in the way the corner of his — very beautiful, actually, holy shit — mouth twitches.

“This is Jack,” Shitty says, and Jack says, “Hi.”

Even in a helmet she can tell Jack’s something gorgeous. “Hi,” she says back. “You’re the captain?”

“For now,” Jack says grimly. Now she can’t tell if he’s joking; Shitty rolls his eyes like he’s saying _this guy, amiright,_ but she’s not sure. “We’ve got to get back to practice, but feel free to stay and get your bearings. Our managers usually come to most if not all our practices in case we need gear or water bottles filled or even just to get to know the guys, maybe get on the ice if we have down time.”

He’s already skating off before she tells him she’ll be around. She blinks at the abruptness. 

Shitty shrugs somewhat apologetically. “That’s Jack.”

“All business, huh,” Larissa says. It’s partly a question. 

He shrugs again, saying, “I said he could abrasive. It’s nothing personal, I promise. He’s just like an onion, gotta peel back the layers bit by bit.”

“What layer are you on?”

Shitty cracks a smile at that. “Layer eight,” he says, slowly skating backward. “I hope, anyway. We’ve seen each other naked, so.”

Huh. He’s gone before she can ask about it. 

____________

 

They’re so _fast._ Larissa watches their practice on the edge of her seat, stunned. She doesn’t understand all the drills they’re doing — there’s a lot of standing in the corners of the rink while a few guys go, and then circling back around to pick up more guys, then adding puck after puck to the mix. They scrimmage with twenty minutes to go. The rules make sense, probably, but Larissa spends most of her time studying the way they skate than trying to understand what’s happening. All she knows is that Shitty’s footwork is wicked, that Jack handles the puck like it’s something precious to him, that Ransom and Holster seem to know where the other person is at all times.

The guys circle up around their coaches at the end of practice. Larissa picks her way down the bleachers carefully, trying not draw attention; Shitty had said last night that they’d want to talk to her if she has time. 

“…like what we’re seeing out there,” one of the coaches says. The other coach nods seriously. “You’re all doing good work, and I expect to see that grow over the rest of the season. Hit the showers.”

The players push up from the ice, laughing and joking with each other. Ransom and Holster wave at her before skating off. Shitty makes his way toward her, while Jack frowns and nods, saying something to Shitty in an undertone before skating away. Larissa frowns too.

“What’d he say?” she asks, when Shitty’s closer.

His face closes off. It’s becoming to be a pattern, she thinks. He gets defensive of Jack very quickly. She files that away.

“Just stuff about the season, the direction we’re heading.” 

 She crosses her arms and studies him. He makes eye contact and his eyes flit away immediately, resting somewhere to her left. 

“Was it about me?” she asks calmly. Mary’s voice pounds in her head with her heartbeat. “Does he have a problem with me being here?”

Shitty visibly startles. “What?”

“I can leave,” she says, “if this isn’t the direction your season’s supposed to be heading in.”

He inches forward and leans on the boards, shaking his head, and his expression now is just plain confused. It does a lot to settle her heart rate; if she’s so off base that he would react like this, then something opposite must be true. If it’s about her, it’s not that they don’t want her here. 

“No, it’s,” he starts. He takes a deep breath, spreading his hands out. Open. “It’s about you, but it’s about me more. He wanted — just a reminder, I guess. For me.”

“About me.”

“He wanted to say it’d be bad for the team dynamic if we dated and then broke up,” Shitty says in a rush. She opens her mouth instinctively, but no words come out. “I didn’t want to — make anything weird, or uncomfortable, or to assume—”

Larissa has no idea what to do with this. “You like me?”

A blatant blush floods Shitty’s cheeks. “What?”

There aren’t many other reasons for Jack to tell him that, and she’s about to say so when the coaches clear their throats and introduce themselves. 

Shitty takes his skates off and walks along with them on their tour of the rink. Hall and Murray give her some more concrete information on game day duties and show her where the spare key’s hidden (“Are you fucking joking, I didn’t find out until literally just now, do you know how many times I’ve frozen my balls off because Jack and I got here first and it wasn’t open—” “Jack knows where the spare key is.” “He fucking _what.”)_. They show her the gear room, saying, “Our last manager organized it some, but feel free to do what you want with it. There’s an inventory sheet somewhere.”

She’s very aware of Shitty walking next to her. There’s something floating in the air between them now, something nebulous and uncertain, and it’s all supercharged in a way she doesn’t quite know how to touch. He likes her. It’s early days, and she isn’t going to admit it to herself or Jack or Shitty or Mary, but she definitely thinks he’s cute, at the very least, and it’s not like she was going to act on it anyway. Right?

Larissa gets her own mini office in the locker room. It’s just a desk really, and a cabinet set and closet, but still. It’s a place she can stick her shit. Somewhere she can carve out a spot for herself.

“That’s most of it,” Hall says. He writes on a piece of paper and hands it to her, saying, “These are the numbers you’ll likely need. Mine and Murray’s are here, these are the trainers, and then these ones are maintenance and concessions.”

“What questions do you have?” Murray asks

She takes the paper. “Can I paint my desk?”

Hall and Murray look at each other. Hall shrugs, turning back to her. “Don’t see why not.”

____________

 

She and Shitty carry the desk to the loading dock in silence. It’s the first time she’s known him to ever be quiet. She hasn’t known him long, but she has a gut feeling that this is rare. Shitty isn’t made for being this quiet.

Minutes drag like the worst kind of paint and immediately she was wrong, he’s so loud. He stretches and sighs and cracks his knuckles and raps the desktop and it’s worse than the silence, this speaking without words. She isn’t fluent in this yet.

“What,” Larissa says finally. Shitty glances at her. She tucks her hair behind her ear. “Say something. You’re driving me crazy.”

“Sorry.” He tugs on his hair too. “I tend to like. Overtalk so much of the time, I didn’t want to say random shit if you didn’t feel like talking to me.”

“Because of Jack.”

“I didn’t want it to awkward,” Shitty says awkwardly. “I think you’re dope as hell. I usually get little crushes on women who are dope as hell. I promise I won’t, like — be weird, or anything, I think you’re—”

“It’s okay,” Larissa interrupts. She smiles at him, and it’s lopsided and not quite her own, but he loses some of the tension in his face. “I think you’re dope as hell too. Just please don’t go quiet like that on me again, okay?”

Shitty says, “Okay,” and holds out a fist. “Bros?”

“The best kind,” she says. She bumps their fists together as her phone chirps an alarm. “I gotta go.”

“Your class?”

Larissa snoozes the alarm. “Yeah.” After a pause, she asks, “Does anyone ever come out here?”

“Jack sometimes, after bad games,” Shitty says, and despite her reservations about Jack so far, imagining him here by himself is a grey picture.

She says, “I really don’t wanna haul this thing back inside,” and Shitty nods fervently.

“That was my workout for the fucking week, brah.” He drops his hands onto his hips and studies the desk. “What’s the plan with this, anyway?”

She has no fucking idea. “Making that shit up as I go.”

“I believe in you,” he says. 

They stare at the desk for a few heartbeats. 

“I gotta go,” Larissa says again, swinging her backpack over her shoulders. Shitty holds out his knuckles again and she bumps them and it’s kind of awkward, honestly, but it’s hopeful. They can pull out of this. It’s still early days.

Shitty asks, “I’ll text you later?” and it feels like another turning point. She nods. He seems to release a deep breath. “Okay. See ya, Duan.”

“Peace out brah,” Larissa says. “Text you later.”

____________

 

 _what about Wellie,_ she types out. _with like. hockey gear on._ Her professor seems to catch the movement; Larissa mouths _emergency_ and her professor blinks an okay. 

Shitty’s response comes quickly. _that’d be ‘swawesome brah_

_dope_

She slides her phone back into her bag, shaking out her hands. The professor goes on about medieval art but Larissa’s mind is back on the loading dock, pulling the painting together in her head. 

It looks a little wild, a little crazy.

She sketches it out in her notes, blocking out a space for herself until class ends.

________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long y'all!  
> Up Next: a Rookie Kegster, Sometimes They Play Hockey, and more art friend shenanigans :)


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